II. As to the eternity of _hell torments_, we have Origen again at the

head of those who deny it; it being the doctrine of that writer, that
not only men, but devils themselves, after a suitable course of
punishment, answerable to their respective crimes, shall be pardoned and
restored to heaven.—_De civit. Dei._ l. xxi. c. 17. The chief principle
Origen went upon was this, that all punishments was emendatory; applied
only to painful medicines, for the recovery of the patient’s health. And
other objections, insisted on by modern authors, are the disproportion
between temporary crimes and eternal punishments, &c.

The scripture phrases for eternity, as is observed by Archbishop
Tillotson, do not always import an infinite duration: thus, in the Old
Testament, _for ever_ often signifies only for a long time; particularly
till the end of the Jewish dispensation: thus in the epistle of _Jude_,
ver. 7, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah are said to be set forth for an
example, suffering the vengeance of _eternal fire_; that is, of a fire
that was not extinguished till those cities were utterly consumed. So
one generation is said to come, &c. but the earth endureth _for ever_.

In effect, Mr. Le Clerc notes, that there is no Hebrew word which
properly expresses eternity: ‏עולם‎ _gnolam_, only imports a time whose
beginning or end is not known; and is accordingly used in a more or less
extensive sense, according to the thing treated of.

Thus when God says, concerning the Jewish laws, that they must be
observed ‏לעולם‎ _legnolam_, for ever, we are to understand as long a
space as we should think fit; or a space whose end was unknown to the
Jews before the coming of the Messiah. All general laws, and such as do
not regard particular occasions, are made _for ever_, whether it be
expressed in those laws, or not; which yet is to be understood in such a
manner, as if the sovereign power could no way change them.

Archbishop Tillotson, however, argues very strenuously, that where _hell
torments_ are spoken of, the words are to be understood in the strict
sense of infinite duration; and what he esteems a peremptory decision of
the point is, that the duration of the punishment of the wicked is in
the very same sentence expressed by the very same word which is used for
the duration of the happiness of the righteous, which all agree to be
eternal. “These, speaking of the wicked, shall go away εις ηολασιν
ονεωνιον, into eternal punishment; but the righteous, εις ζωην αιωνι,
into life eternal.”

Oldham, in his “Satires upon the Jesuits,” alludes to their “lying
legends,” and the numerous impositions they practised on the credulous.
The following lines are quoted from these legendary miracles, noticed
under the article LEGEND, and the amours of the Virgin Mary are narrated
in vol. ii. under the article _Religious Nouvellete_:—

Tell, how _blessed Virgin_ to come down was seen,
Like playhouse punk descending in machine,
How she writ _billet-doux_ and _love discourse_,
Made _assignations_, _visits_, and _amours_;
How hosts distrest, her smock for _banner_ wore,
Which vanquished foes!
——How fish in conventicles met,
And _mackerel_ were the _bait_ of _doctrine_ caught;
How cattle have judicious hearers been!
How consecrated hives with bells were hung,
And _bees_ kept mass, and holy _anthems sung_!
How _pigs_ to the _rosary_ kneel’d, and sheep were taught
To bleat _Te Deum_ and _Magnificat_;
How _fly-flap_, of church-censure houses rid
Of insects, which at _curse_ of _fryar_ died.
How _ferrying cowls_ religious pilgrims bore
O’er waves, without the help of sail or oar;
How _zealous crab_ the _sacred image_ bore,
And swam a catholic to the distant shore.
With shams like these the giddy rout mislead,
Their folly and their superstition feed.

These are all extravagant fictions in the “Golden legend.” Among other
gross and equally absurd impositions to deceive the mob, Oldham also
attacks them for certain publications on topics not less singular. The
tales he has recounted, says Oldham, are only baits for children like
toys at a fair; but they have their profounder and higher matters for
the learned and the inquisitive.

One undertakes by scales of miles to tell
The bounds, dimensions, and extent of hell;
How many German leagues that realm contains!
How many hell each year expends
In coals, for roasting Hugonots and friends!
Another frights the rout with useful stories
Of wild chimeras, limbos, PURGATORIES!
Where bloated souls in smoky durance hung
Like a Westphalia gammon or neat’s tongue,
To be redeemed with masses and a song.

Topographical descriptions of HELL, PURGATORY, and even HEAVEN, were
once favourite researches among certain orthodox and zealous defenders
of the papish church, who exhausted their materials in fabricating a
hell to their own ideas, or for their particular purpose. There is a
treatise of Cardinal Bellarmin, a jesuit, on _Purgatory_, wherein he
appears to possess all the knowledge of a land-measurer among the secret
tracts and formidable divisions of “the bottomless pit.” This jesuit
informs us that there are beneath the earth four different places, or a
place divided into four parts; the deepest of which is hell: it contains
all the souls of the damned, where will be also their bodies after the
resurrection, and likewise all the demons. The place nearest hell is
_purgatory_, where souls are purged, or rather where they appease the
anger of God by their sufferings. The same fires and the same torments,
he says, are alike in both places, the only difference between _hell_
and _purgatory_ consisting in their duration. Next to _purgatory_ is the
_limbo_ of those _infants_ who die without having received the
sacrament; and the fourth place is the limbo of the _Fathers_; that is
to say, of those _just men_ who died before the death of Christ. But
since the days of the Redeemer this last division is empty, like an
apartment to let. A later Catholic theologist, the famous Tillemont,
condemns all the _illustrious pagans to the eternal torments of hell_!
because they lived before the time of Jesus, and, therefore, could not
be benefited by the redemption! Speaking of young Tiberius, who was
compelled to fall on his own sword, Tillemont adds, “Thus by his own
hand he ended his miserable life, _to begin another, the misery of which
will never end_!” Yet history records nothing bad of this prince. Jortin
observes, that he added this _reflection_ in his later edition, so that
the good man as he grew older grew more uncharitable in his religious
notions. It is in this matter too that the Benedictine editor of Justin
Martyr speaks of the illustrious pagans. This father, after highly
applauding Socrates, and a few more who resembled him, inclines to think
that they are not fixed in _hell_. But the Benedictine editor takes
infinite pains to clear the good father from the shameful imputation of
supposing that a _virtuous pagan might be saved_ as well as a
Benedictine monk[52]!

The adverse party, who were either philosophers or reformers, received
all such information with great suspicion. Anthony Cornelius, a lawyer
in the 16th century, wrote a small tract, which was so effectually
suppressed, as a monster of atheism, that a copy is now only to be found
in the hands of the curious. This author ridiculed the absurd and horrid
doctrine of _infant damnation_, and was instantly decried as an atheist,
and the printer prosecuted to his ruin! Cœlius Secundus Curio, a noble
Italian, published a treatise _De Amplitudine beati regno Dei_, to prove
that heaven has more inhabitants than hell, or in his own phrase, that
the _elect_ are more numerous than the _reprobate_. However we may
incline to smile at these works, their design was benevolent. They were
the first streaks of the morning-light of the Reformation. Even such
works assisted mankind to examine more closely, and hold in greater
contempt, the extravagant and pernicious doctrines of the domineering
papistical church.




INQUISITION.


In the civil and canon law, inquisition implies a manner of proceeding
for the discovery of some crime by the sole office of the judge, in the
way of search, examination, or even torture. It is also used in common
law for a like process in the king’s behalf, for the discovery of lands,
profits, and the like; in which sense it is often confounded with the
office of the


_Inquisition, or the Holy Office_,

Which denotes an ecclesiastical jurisdiction established in Spain,
Portugal, and Italy, for the trial and examination of such persons as
are suspected to entertain any religious opinions contrary to those
professed in the church of Rome. It is called _inquisition_ because the
judges of their office take cognizances of crime or common report,
without any legal evidence, except what they themselves fish out.

Some people fancy they see the original inquisition, in a constitution
made by Pope Lucius, at the council of Verona, in 1184, where he orders
the bishops to get information, either by themselves or by their
commissaries, of all such persons as were suspected of heresy; and
distinguishes the several degrees of suspected, convicted, penitent,
relapsed, &c. However this may be, it is generally allowed, that Pope
Innocent III., laid the first foundation of the _holy office_; and that
the Vaudois and Albigenses were what gave the occasion to it. The
pontiff sent several priests, with St. Dominic at their head, to
Tholouse, in order to blow up a spirit of zeal and persecution amongst
the prelates and princes. These missionaries were to give an account of
the number of heretics in those parts, and the behaviour of the princes
and persons in authority to them; and thence they acquired the names of
inquisitors: but these original inquisitors had not any court, or any
authority; they were only a kind of spiritual spies, who were to make
report of their discoveries to the Pope.

The Emperor Frederick II. at the beginning of the 13th century, extended
their power very considerably: he committed the taking cognizances of
the crime of heresy, to a set of ecclesiastical judges; and as fire was
the punishment decreed to the obstinate, the inquisitors determined
indirectly, with regard both to the persons and the crimes; by which
means the laity was cut off from its own jurisdiction, and abandoned to
the devout madness and zeal of the ecclesiastics.

After the death of Frederick, who had long before repented the power he
had given the churchmen, as having seen some of the fruits of it; Pope
Innocent IV. erected a perpetual tribunal of inquisitors, and deprived
the bishops and secular judges of the little power the Emperor Frederick
had left them. And this jurisdiction, which depended immediately on
himself, he took care to introduce into most of the states of Europe.
But the inquisitors were so fiery hot, and made such horrid butchery
among the reputed heretics, that they raised an universal detestation,
even in some Catholic countries themselves. Hence it was that their
reign proved very short both in France and Germany; nor was even Spain
entirely subject to them till the time of Ferdinand and Isabella, in
1448, when their power was increased, under the pretence of clearing the
country of Judaism and Mahometanism. The power of the inquisition is
very much limited in some countries, particularly at Venice, where it is
received under such modifications as prove a great check on its
authority. Indeed at Venice it seems rather a political than a religious
contrivance, and serves rather for the security of the state, than that
of the church. There are appeals from the subaltern inquisitions in
Italy, to the congregation of the holy office at Rome.

It is the constant practice of the inquisition to affect, in all their
procedures, to inspire as much terror as possible; every thing is done
with the most profound silence and secrecy, and with the greatest rigour
and pretended impartiality. When a person is seized all the world
abandons him; not the nearest friend dares to speak a word in his
defence; that alone would be enough to render them suspected of heresy,
and would bring them within the claws of the inquisition. The criminals
are seized, examined, tried, tortured, and unless they recant, are even
condemned and executed, without ever seeing or knowing their accusers;
whence the revengeful have a fair opportunity of wreaking their malice
on their enemies. When the inquisition has done with them, and condemned
them to death, they are turned over to the secular arm, with a world of
prayer, and pious entreaty, that their lives may not be touched.

Time is no manner of security in point of heresy, nor does the grave
itself shelter the accused from the pursuits of the inquisition; even
the deceased have their trials, and they proceed in all their form and
solemnity against the dead carcases. The execution is always deferred
till the number of condemned is very great, that the multitude of
sufferers may strike the deeper horror, and make the scene more terrible
and shocking.

The inquisition of Rome is a congregation of twelve cardinals and some
other officers, where the Pope presides in person. This is accounted the
highest tribunal in Rome; it began in the time of Pope Paul IV. on
occasion of the Lutheranism.

The inquisition is very severe in the Indies. It is true, there must
there be the oaths of seven witnesses to condemn a man; but the
deposition of slaves or children are taken. The person is tortured till
he condemns himself; for his accusers are never brought to confront him.
Persons are accused for the most slender expression against the church;
or even for a disrespectful word against the inquisitors.

The standard of the inquisition is a piece of red damask, on which is
painted a cross, with an olive branch on one side and a sword on the
other; with these words of the Psalm, _Exurge, Domine, et judica causam
meam_.

This infernal engine of tyranny, bigotry, and superstition, did not
become known in Spain before the year 1484. The court of Rome owed this
obligation to another Dominican, John de Torquemada. As he was the
confessor of Queen Isabella, he had extorted from her a promise that if
ever she ascended the throne, she would use every means to extirpate
heresy and heretics. Ferdinand had conquered Grenada, and had expelled
from the Spanish realms multitudes of unfortunate Moors. A few remained,
who, with the Jews, he compelled to become Christians: they at least
assumed the name, but it was well known that both these nations
naturally respected their own faith, rather than that of the Christians.
This race was afterwards distinguished as _Christianos novos_; and in
marriages, the blood of the Hidalgo was considered to lose its purity by
mingling with such a suspicious source.

It was pretended by Torquemada, that this dissimulation would greatly
hurt the holy religion. The Queen listened with respectful diffidence to
her confessor; and at length gained over the king to consent to the
establishment of the unrelenting tribunal. Torquemada, indefatigable in
his zeal for the holy see, in the space of fourteen years that he
exercised the office of chief inquisitor, is said to have prosecuted
near eighty thousand persons, of whom six thousand were condemned to the
flames.

Voltaire attributes the taciturnity of the Spaniards to the universal
horror such proceedings spread. “A jealousy and suspicion took
possession of all ranks of people: friendship and sociability were at an
end! Brothers were afraid of brothers, fathers of their children.”

The situation and feelings of one imprisoned in the cells of the
inquisition are forcibly painted by Orobio, a mild, and meek, and
learned man, whose controversy with Limborch is well known. When he
escaped from Spain he took refuge in Holland, was circumcised, and died
a philosophical Jew. He has left this admirable description of himself
in the cell of the inquisition:—“Inclosed in this dungeon I could not
even find space enough to turn myself about; I suffered so much that I
found my brain disordered. I frequently asked myself, am I really Don
Bathazaar Orobio, who used to walk about Seville at my pleasure, who so
much enjoyed myself with my wife and children? I often imagined that all
my life had only been a dream, and that I really had been born in this
dungeon! The only amusement I could invent was metaphysical
disputations. I was at once opponent, respondent, and phæses!” In the
cathedral at Saragossa is the tomb of a famous inquisitor; six pillars
surround the tomb; to each is chained a Moor, as preparatory to his
being burnt. On this St. Foix ingeniously observes, “If ever the
jack-ketch of any country should be rich enough to have a splendid tomb,
this might serve as an excellent model.”

Bayle informs us, that the inquisition punished heretics by fire, to
elude the maxim, _Ecclesia non novit sanguinem_; for burning a man, say
they, does not shed _his blood_! Otho, the bishop at the Norman
invasion, in the tapestry worked by Matilda, the queen of William the
Conqueror, is represented with a _mace_ in his hand, for the purpose,
that when he _dispatched_ his antagonist, he might not _spill blood_,
but only break bones! Religion has had her quibbles as well as law.

The establishment of this despotic order was resisted in France; but it
may perhaps surprise the reader that a recorder of London, in a speech,
urged the necessity of setting up an inquisition in England! It was on
the trial of Penn the Quaker, in 1670, who was acquitted by the jury,
which seems highly to have provoked the said recorder. “_Magna Charta_,”
says the preface to the trial, “with the recorder of London, is nothing
more than _Magna F——_!” It appears that the jury after being kept two
days and two nights to change their verdict, were in the end both fined
and imprisoned. Sir John Howell, the recorder, said, “Till now I never
understood the reason of the policy and prudence of the Spaniards, in
suffering the inquisition among them; and certainly it will not be well
with us, till something _like unto the Spanish inquisition_ be in
England.” Thus it will ever be, while both parties, struggling for
pre-eminence, rush to the sharp extremity of things, and annihilate the
trembling balance of the constitution. But the adopted motto of Lord
Erskine must ever be that of every Briton, “_Trial by Jury_.”

Gabriel Malagrida, an old man of seventy, so late as the year 1761, was
burnt by these evangelical executioners. His trial was printed at
Amsterdam, 1762, from the Lisbon copy. And for what was this unhappy
Jesuit condemned? Not, as some imagined, for his having been concerned
in a conspiracy against the King of Portugal. No other charge is laid to
him in his trial, but that of having indulged certain heretical notions,
which any other tribunal but that of the inquisition, would have looked
upon as the deleterious fancies of a fanatical old man. Will posterity
believe, that in the eighteenth century an aged visionary was led to the
stake for having said, amongst other extravagances, “that the Virgin
having commanded him to write the life of Antichrist, told him, that he,
Malagrida, was a second John, but more clear than John the Evangelist;
that there were to be three Antichrists, and that the last should be
born at Milan, of a monk and a nun, in the year 1920; that he would
marry Proserpine, one of the infernal furies.”

For such ravings as these the unhappy old man was burnt in recent times.
Granger assures us, that a horse, in his remembrance, who had been
taught to tell the spots upon cards, the hour of the day, &c. by
significant tokens, was, together with his _owner_, put into the
inquisition, for both of them dealing with the devil! A man of letters
declared that, having fallen into their hands, nothing perplexed him so
much as the ignorance of the inquisitor and his council; and it seemed
very doubtful whether they had read even the Scriptures.

The following most interesting anecdote relating to the terrible
inquisition, exemplifying how the use of the diabolical engines of
torture forces men to confess crimes they have not been guilty of, was
related to Mr. D’Israeli by a Portuguese gentleman.

A nobleman in Lisbon having heard that his physician and friend was
imprisoned by the inquisition, under the stale pretext of Judaism,
addressed a letter to one of them, to request his freedom, assuring the
inquisitor, that his friend was as orthodox a Christian as himself. The
physician, notwithstanding this high recommendation, was put to the
torture; and, as was usually the case, at the height of his sufferings,
confessed every thing they wished. This enraged the nobleman, and
feigning a dangerous illness, he begged the inquisitor would come to
give him his last spiritual aid.

As soon as the Dominican arrived, the lord, who had prepared his
confidential servants, commanded the inquisitor, in their presence, to
acknowledge himself a Jew; to write his confession and to sign it. On
the refusal of the inquisitor, the nobleman ordered his people to put on
the inquisitor’s head a red hot helmet, which to his astonishment, in
drawing aside a screen, he beheld glowing in a small furnace. At the
sight of this new instrument of torture, “Luke’s iron crown,” the monk
wrote and subscribed this abhorred confession. The nobleman then
observed, “See now the enormity of your manner of proceeding with
unhappy men! My poor physician, like you, has confessed Judaism; but
with this difference, only torments have forced that from him, which
fear alone has drawn from you!”

The inquisition has not failed of receiving its due praises. Macedo, a
Portuguese Jesuit, has discovered the “Origin of the _Inquisition_,” in
the terrestrial Paradise, and presumes to allege, that God was the first
who began the functions of an inquisitor over Cain and the workmen of
Babel! Macedo, however, is not so dreaming a personage as he appears;
for he obtained a professor’s chair at Padua, for the arguments he
delivered at Venice, against the Pope, which were published by the title
of “The Literary Roarings of the Lion of St. Mark;” besides, he is the
author of 109 different works; but it is curious how far our interest is
apt to prevail over conscience,—Macedo praised the inquisition up to
heaven, while he sank the Pope to nothing.

Among the great revolutions of this age, the inquisition of Spain and
Portugal is abolished, but its history enters into that of the human
mind; and the history of the inquisition by Limborch, translated by
Chandler, with a very curious “Introduction,” loses none of its value
with the philosophical mind. This monstrous tribunal of human opinions,
aimed at the sovereignty of the intellectual world, without intellect.
It may again be restored, to keep Spain stationary at the middle ages!




DEMON,


A name the ancients gave to certain spirits, or _genii_, which, they
say, appeared to men, either to do them service, or to hurt them.

The first notion of demons was brought from Chaldea; whence it spread
itself among the Persians, Egyptians, and Greeks. Pythagoras and Thales
were the first who introduced demons into Greece. Plato fell in with the
notion, and explained it more distinctly and fully, than any of the
former philosophers had done. By demons, he understood spirits, inferior
to gods, and yet superior to men; which inhabited the middle region of
the air, kept up the communication between gods and men, carrying the
offerings and prayers of men to the gods, and bringing down the will of
the gods to men. But he allowed of none but good and beneficent ones:
though his disciples afterwards, finding themselves at a loss how to
account for the origin of evil, adopted another sort of demons, who were
enemies to men.

There is nothing more common in the heathen theology, than these good
and evil genii. And the same superstitious notion we find got footing
among the Israelites, by their commerce with the Chaldeans. But by
demons, they did not mean the devil, or a wicked spirit: they never took
the word demon in that sense, nor was it ever used in such
signification, till by the evangelists and some modern Jews. The word is
Greek, θαιμων.

Gale endeavours to shew, that the origin and intitution of demons was an
imitation of the Messiah. The Phœnicians called them ‏בעלים‎ _Baalim_.
For they had one supreme being, whom they called _Baal_, (and Moloch,
and various inferior deities called Baalim,) whereof we find frequent
mention in the Old Testament. The first demon of the Egyptians was
Mercury, or Thuet. The same author finds some resemblance between the
several offices ascribed to the demons and those of the Messiah.

_Demoniac_, is applied to a person possessed with a spirit, or demon. In
the Roman church, there is a particular office for the exorcism of
demoniacs.

Demoniacs are also a party or branch of the Anabaptists, whose
distinguishing tenet it is, that the devil shall be saved at the end of
the world.—See DEMONOLOGY.




DEMONOLOGY.


——“Spirits, when they please,
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure,
Not ty’d or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,
Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they chuse,
Dilated οr condens’d, bright or obscure,
Can execute their airy purposes.”
MILTON.

Diabolus, a devil, or evil angel, is one of those celestial spirits cast
down from heaven for pretending to equal himself with God.

The Ethiopians paint the devil white, to be even with the Europeans, who
paint him black.

We find no mention made of the word _devil_ in the Old Testament, but
only of Satan: nor in any heathen authors do we meet with the word
devil, in the signification attached to it among the Christians; that
is, as a creature revolted from God: their theology went no farther than
to evil genii, or demons, who harassed and persecuted mankind, though we
are well aware many names are given to the devil both in holy writ and
elsewhere.

“O thou! whatever title suit thee,
Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim an’ sootie
Closed under hatches,
Spairges about the brimstane clootie,
To scaud poor wretches.”—BURNS.

Demon was the name given by the Greeks and Romans to certain _genii_ or
spirits, who made themselves visible to men with the intention of doing
them either good or harm.

The Platonists made a distinction between their gods, or _dei majorum
gentium_; their demons, or those beings which were not dissimilar in
their general character to the good and evil angels of Christian belief;
and their heroes. The Jews and the early Christians restricted the
appellation of demons to beings of a malignant nature, or to devils; and
it is to the early opinions entertained by this people, that the
outlines of later systems of Demonology are to be traced.

“The tradition of the Jews concerning evil spirits are various; some of
them are founded on Scripture; some borrowed from the notions of the
pagans; some are fables of their own invention; and some are
allegories.” The demons of the Jews were considered either as the
distant progeny of Adam or of Eve, which had resulted from an improper
intercourse with supernatural beings, or of Cain. As this doctrine,
however, was extremely revolting to some few of the early Christians,
they maintained that demons were the souls of departed human beings, who
were still permitted to interfere in the affairs of the earth, either to
assist their friends or to persecute their enemies. This doctrine,
however, did not prevail.

An attempt was made about two centuries and a half ago to give, in a
condensed form, the various opinions entertained at an early period of
the Christian era, and during the middle ages, of the nature of the
demons of popular belief. We shall therefore lay this chapter before our
readers, which, being so comprehensive, and at the same time so concise,
requires no abridgment;—“I, for my own part, do also thinke this
argument about the nature and substance of devels and spirits to be
difficult, as I am persuaded that no one author hath in anie certaine or
perfect sort hitherto written thereof. In which respect I can neither
allow the ungodly and profane sects and doctrines of the Sadduces and
Perepateticks, who denie that there are any spirits and devils at all;
nor the fond and superstitious treatises of Plato, Proctics, Plotenus,
Porphyrie; nor yet the vaine and absurd opinions of Psellus, Nider,
Sprenger, Cumanus, Bodin, Michæl, Andæas, James Mathæus, Laurentius,
Ananias, Jamblicus, &c.; who, with manie others, write so ridiculous
lies in these matters, as if they were babes fraied with bugges; some
affirming that the souls of the dead become spirits, the good to be
angels, the bad to be divels; some, that spirits or divels are onelie in
this life; some, that they are men; some that they are women; some that
divels are of such gender that they list themselves; some that they had
no beginning, nor shall have ending, as the Manechies maintain; some
that they are mortal and die, as Plutarch affirmeth of Pan; some that
they have no bodies at all, but receive bodies according to their
fantasies and imaginations; some that their bodies are given unto them;
some, that they make themselves. Some saie they are wind; some that one
of them begat another; some, that they were created of the least part of
the masse, whereof the earth was made; and some, that they are
substances between God and man, and that some of them are terrestrial,
some celestial, some waterie, some airie, some fierie, some starrie, and
some of each and every part of the elements; and that they know our
thoughts, and carrie our good works to God, and praiers to God, and
return his benefits back unto us, and that they are to be worshipped;
wherein they meete and agree jumpe with the papists.”—“Againe, some
saie, that they are meane between terrestrial and celestial bodies,
communicating part of each nature; and that, although they be eternal,
yet they are moved with affections; and as there are birds in the aire,
fishes in the water, and worms in the earth, so in the fourth element,
which is the fire, is the habitation of spirits and devils.”—“Some saie
they are onelie imaginations in the mind of man. Tertullian saith they
are birds, and flie faster than anie fowle in the aire. Some saie that
divels are not, but when they are sent; and therefore are called evil
angels. Some think that the devil sendeth his angels abrode, and he
himself maketh his continual abode in hell, his mansion-place.”

In allusion to this subject a late writer remarks that “It was not,
however, until a much later period of Christianity, that more decided
doctrines relative to the origin and nature of demons was established.
These tenets involved certain very knotty points relative to the fall of
those angels, who, for disobedience, had forfeited their high abode in
heaven. The Gnostics, of early Christian times, in imitation of a
classification of the different orders of spirits by Plato had attempted
a similar arrangement with respect to an hierarchy of angels, the
gradation of which stood as follows:—The first, and highest order, was
named seraphim; the second, cherubim; the third was the order of
thrones; the fourth, of dominions; the fifth, of virtues; the sixth, of
powers; the seventh, of principalities; the eighth, of archangels; the
ninth, and lowest, of angels. This fable was, in a pointed manner,
censured by the apostles; yet still, strange to say, it almost outlived
the Pneumatologists of the middle ages. These schoolmen, in reference to
the account that Lucifer rebelled against heaven, and that Michael the
Archangel warred against him, long agitated the momentous question, what
orders of angels fell on this occasion? At length it became the
prevailing opinion that Lucifer was of the order of seraphim. It was
also proved, after infinite research, that Agares, Belial, and Barbatos,
each of them deposed angels of great rank, had been of the order of
virtues; that Bileth, Focalor, and Phœnix, had been of the order of
thrones; that Gaap had been of the order of powers; and that Pinson had
been both of the order of virtues and powers; and Murmur of thrones and
angels. The pretensions of many other noble devils were, likewise,
canvassed, and in an equally satisfactory manner, determined.
Afterwards, it became an object of enquiry to learn, how many fallen
angels had been engaged in the contest. This was a question of vital
importance, which gave rise to the most laborious research, and to a
variety of discordant opinions.—It was next agitated—where the battle
was fought? in the inferior heaven,—in the highest region of the air, in
the firmament, or in paradise? how long it lasted? whether, during one
second, or moment of time, (_punctum temporis_) two, three, or four
seconds? These were queries of very difficult solution; but the notion
which ultimately prevailed was, that the engagement was concluded in
exactly three seconds from the date of its commencement; and that while
Lucifer, with a number of his followers, fell into hell, the rest were
left in the air to tempt man. A still newer question arose out of all
these investigations, whether more angels fell with Lucifer, or remained
in heaven with Michael? Learned clerks, however, were inclined to think,
that the rebel chief had been beaten by a superior force, and that,
consequently, devils of darkness were fewer in number than angels of
light.

“These discussions, which, during a number of successive centuries,
interested the whole of Christendom, too frequently exercised the
talents of the most erudite characters in Europe. The last object of
demonologists was to collect, in some degree of order, Lucifer’s routed
forces, and to re-organise them under a decided form of subordination or
government. Hence, extensive districts were given to certain chiefs that
fought under this general. There was Zemimar, “the lordly monarch of the
North,” as Shakspeare styles him[53], who had this distinct province of
devils; there was Gorson, the king of the South; Amaymon, the king of
the East; and Goap, the prince of the West. These sovereigns had many
noble spirits subordinate to them, whose various ranks were settled with
all the preciseness of heraldic distinction; there were devil dukes,
devil marquises, devil earls, devil knights, devil presidents, and devil
prelates. The armed force under Lucifer seems to have comprised nearly
2,400 legions, of which each demon of rank commanded a certain number.
Thus, Beleth, whom Scott has described as a “great king and terrible,
riding on a pale horse, before whom go trumpets and all melodious
music,” commanded 85 legions; Agarer, the first duke under the power of
the East, commanded 31 legions; Leraie, a great marquis, 30 legions;
Morax, a great earl and president, 36 legions; Furcas, a knight, 20
legions; and after the same manner, the forces of the other devil
chieftains were enumerated.”


_Derivation of the strange and hideous forms of Devils, &c._

In the middle ages, when conjuration was regularly practised in Europe,
devils of rank were supposed to appear under decided forms, by which
they were as well recognised, as the head of any ancient family would be
by his crest and armorial bearings. The shapes they were accustomed to
adopt were registered along with their names and characters. A devil
would appear, either like an angel seated in a fiery chariot, or riding
on an infernal dragon; and carrying in his right hand a viper, or
assuming a lion’s head, a goose’s feet, and a hare’s tail, or putting on
a raven’s head, and mounted on a strong wolf. Other forms made use of by
demons, were those of a fierce warrior, or an old man riding upon a
crocodile with a hawk in his hand. A human figure would arise having the
wings of a griffin; or sporting three heads, two of them like those of a
toad and of a cat; or defended with huge teeth and horns, and armed with
a sword; or displaying a dog’s teeth, and a large raven’s head; or
mounted upon a pale horse, and exhibiting a serpent’s tail; or
gloriously crowned, and riding upon a dromedary; or presenting the face
of a lion; or bestriding a bear, and grasping a viper. There were also
such shapes as those of an archer, or of a Zenophilus. A demoniacal king
would ride upon a pale horse; or would assume a leopard’s face and
griffin’s wings; or put on the three heads of a bull, of a man, and a
ram with a serpent’s tail, and the feet of a goose; and, in this attire,
sit on a dragon, and bear in his hand a lance and a flag; or, instead of
being thus employed, goad the flanks of a furious bear, and carry in his
fist a hawk. Other forms were those of a goodly knight; or of one who
bore lance, ensigns, and even sceptre; or, of a soldier, either riding
on a black horse, and surrounded with a flame of fire; or wearing on his
head a Duke’s crown, and mounted on a crocodile; or assuming a lion’s
face, and with fiery eyes, spurring on a gigantic charger, or, with the
same frightful aspect, appearing in all the pomp of family distinction,
on a pale horse; or clad from head to foot in crimson raiment, wearing
on his bold front a crown, and sallying forth on a red steed.

Some infernal Duke would appear in his proper character, quietly seated
on a griffin; another spirit of a similar rank would display the three
heads of a serpent, a man, and a cat; he would also bestride a viper,
and carry in his hand a firebrand; another of the same stamp, would
appear like a duchess, encircled with a fiery zone, and mounted on a
camel; a fourth would wear the aspect of a boy, and amuse himself on the
back of a two-headed dragon. A few spirits, however, would be content
with the simple garbs of a horse, a leopard, a lion, an unicorn, a
night-raven, a stork, a peacock, or a dromedary; the latter animal
speaking fluently the Egyptian language. Others would assume the more
complex forms of a lion or of a dog, with a griffin’s wings attached to
each of their shoulders; or of a bull equally well gifted; or of the
same animal, distinguished by the singular appendage of a man’s face; or
of a crow clothed with human flesh; or of a hart with a fiery tail. To
certain other noble devils were assigned such shapes as those of a
dragon with three heads, one of these being human; of a wolf with a
serpent’s tail, breathing forth flames of fire; of a she wolf exhibiting
the same caudal appendage, together with a griffin’s wings, and ejecting
hideous matter from the mouth. A lion would appear either with the head
of a branded thief, or astride upon a black horse, and playing with a
viper, or adorned with the tail of a snake, and grasping in his paws two
hissing serpents. These were the varied shapes assumed by devils of
rank. To those of an inferior order were consigned upon earth, the duty
of carrying away condemned souls. These were described as blacker than
pitch: as having teeth like lions, nails on their fingers like those of
the wild boar, on their forehead horns, through the extremities of
which, poison was emitted, having wide ears flowing with corruption, and
discharging serpents from their nostrils, and having cloven feet[54].
But this last appendage, as Sir Thomas Brown has learnedly proved, is a
mistake, which has arisen from the devil frequently appearing to the
Jews in the shape of a rough and hairy goat, this animal being the
emblem of sin-offerings[55].

It is worthy of farther remark, says Dr. Hibbert, that the forms of the
demons described by St. Bernard, differs little from that which is no
less carefully pourtrayed by Reginald Scott, 350 years later, and,
perhaps, by the Demonologists of the present day. “In our childhood,”
says he, “our mothers’ maids have so terrified us with an ouglie devell
having hornes on his head, fier in his mouth, and a taile in his breech,
eies like a bason, fangs like a dog, clawes like a bear, a skin like a
tiger, and a voice roaring like a lion,—whereby we start and are afraid
when we heare one cry _bough_.”

It is still an interesting matter of speculation worth noticing—why,
after the decay of the regular systems of demonology taught in the
middle ages, the same hideous form should still be attached to the
devil? The learned Mede has remarked, “that the devil could not appear
in human shape while man was in his integrity; because he was a spirit
fallen from his first glorious perfection; and, therefore, must appear
in such a shape which might argue his imperfection and abasement, which
was the shape of a beast; otherwise, no reason can be given, why he
should not rather have appeared to Eve in the shape of a woman than of a
serpent. But since the fall of man, the case is altered: now we know he
can take upon him the shape of man. He appears, it seems, in the shape
of man’s imperfection, either for age or deformity, as like an old man
(for so the witches say); and perhaps it is not altogether false, which
is vulgarly affirmed, that the devil appearing in human shape, has
always a deformity of some uncouth member or other, as though he could
not yet take upon him human shape entirely, for that man himself is not
entirely and utterly fallen as he is.” Grose, with considerable less
seriousness, observes, that “although the devil can partly transform
himself into a variety of shapes, he cannot change his cloven feet,
which will always mark him under every appearance.

The late Dr. Ferriar took some trouble to trace to their real source
spectral figures, which have been attributed to demoniacal visits. In
his observations on the works of Remy, the commissioner in Lorraine, for
the trial of witches, he makes the following remark:—“My edition of this
book was printed by Vincente, at Lyons, in 1595; it is entitled
Dæmonolatria. The trials appear to have begun in 1583. Mr. Remy seems to
have felt great anxiety to ascertain the exact features and dress of the
demons, with whom many people supposed themselves to be familiar. Yet
nothing transpired in his examinations, which varied from the usual
figures exhibited by the gross sculptures and paintings of the middle
age. They are said to be black faced, with sunk but fiery eyes, their
mouths wide and swelling of sulphur, their hands hairy, with claws,
their feet horny and cloven.” In another part of Dr. Ferriar’s, the
following account is also given of a case which passed under his own
observation:—“I had occasion,” he observes, “to see a young married
woman, whose first indication of illness was a spectral delusion. She
told me that her apartment appeared to be suddenly filled with devils,
and that her terror impelled her to quit the house with great
precipitation. When she was brought back, she saw the whole staircase
filled with diabolical forms, and was in agonies of fear for several
days. After the first impression wore off, she heard a voice tempting
her to self destruction, and prohibiting her from all exercises of
piety. Such was the account given by her when she was sensible of the
delusion, yet unable to resist the horror of the impression. When she
was newly recovered, I had the curiosity to question her, as I have
interrogated others, respecting the forms of the demons with which she
had been claimed; but I never could obtain any other account, than that
they were very small, very much deformed, and had horns and claws like
the imps of our terrific modern romances.” To this illustration of the
general origin of the figures of demoniacal illusions, I might observe,
that, in the case of a patient suffering under _delirium tremens_, which
came under my notice, the devils who flitted around his bed were
described to me as exactly like the forms that he had recently seen
exhibited on the stage in the popular drama of Don Giovanni.

With the view of illustrating other accounts of apparitions, I shall now
return to the doctrine of demonology which was once taught. Although the
leading tenets of this occult science may be traced to the Jews and
early Christians, yet they were matured by our early communication with
the Moors of Spain, who were the chief philosophers of the dark ages,
and between whom and the natives of France and Italy, a great
communication subsisted. Toledo, Seville, and Salamanca, became the
greatest schools of magic. At the latter city, prelections on the black
art were, from a consistent regard to the solemnity of the subject,
delivered within the walls of a vast and gloomy cavern. The schoolmen
taught, that all knowledge might be obtained from the assistance of the
fallen angels. They were skilled in the abstract sciences, in the
knowledge of precious stones, in alchymy, in the various languages of
mankind and of the lower animals, in the belles lettres, in moral
philosophy, pneumatology, divinity, magic, history, and prophecy. They
could controul the winds, the waters, and the influence of the stars;
they could raise earthquakes, induce diseases, or cure them, accomplish
all vast mechanical undertakings, and release souls out of purgatory.
They could influence the passions of the mind—procure the reconciliation
of friends or foes—engender mutual discord—induce mania and melancholy—
or direct the force and objects of the sexual affections.

Such was the object of demonology, as taught by its most orthodox
professors. Yet other systems of it were devised, which had their origin
in causes attending the propagation of Christianity. For it must have
been a work of much time to eradicate the universal belief, that the
Pagan deities, who had become so numerous as to fill every part of the
universe, were fabulous beings. Even many learned men were induced to
side with the popular opinion on the subject, and did nothing more than
endeavour to reconcile it with their acknowledged systems of demonology.
They taught that such heathen objects of reverence were fallen angels in
league with the prince of darkness, who, until the appearance of our
Saviour, had been allowed to range on the earth uncontrolled, and to
involve the world in spiritual darkness and delusion. According to the
various ranks which these spirits held in the vast kingdom of Lucifer,
they were suffered, in their degraded state, to take up their abode in
the air, in mountains, in springs, or in seas. But, although the various
attributes ascribed to the Greek and Roman deities, were, by the early
teachers of Christianity, considered in the humble light of demoniacal
delusions, yet for many centuries they possessed great influence over
the minds of the vulgar. In the reign of Adrian, Evreux, in Normandy,
was not converted to the Christian faith, until the devil, who had
caused the obstinacy of the inhabitants, was finally expelled from the
temple of Diana. To this goddess, during the persecution of Dioclesian,
oblations were rendered by the inhabitants of London. In the 5th
century, the worship of her existed at Turin, and incurred the rebuke of
St. Maximus. From the ninth to the fifteenth century, several
denunciations took place of the women who, in France and Germany,
travelled over immense spaces of the earth, acknowledging Diana as their
mistress and conductor. In rebuilding St. Paul’s cathedral, in London,
remains of several of the animals used in her sacrifices were found; for
slight traces of this description of reverence, subsisted so late as the
reign of Edward the First, and of Mary. Apollo, also, in an early period
of Christianity, had some influence at Thorney, now Westminster. About
the 11th century, Venus formed the subject of a monstrous apparition,
which could only have been credited from the influence which she was
still supposed to possess. A young man had thoughtlessly put his ring
around the marble finger of her image. This was construed by the Cyprian
goddess as a plighted token of marriage; she accordingly paid a visit to
her bridegroom’s bed at night, nor could he get rid of his bed-fellow
until the spells of an exorcist had been invoked for his relief. In the
year 1536, just before the volcanic eruption of Mount Etna, a Spanish
merchant, while travelling in Sicily, saw the apparition of Vulcan
attended by twenty of his Cyclops, as they were escaping from the
effects which the over heating of his furnace foreboded[56].

To the superstitions of Greece and Rome, we are also indebted for those
subordinate evil spirits called _genii_, who for many centuries were the
subject of numerous spectral illusions. A phantasm of this kind appeared
to Brutus in his tent, prophesying that he should be again seen at
Philippi. Cornelius Sylla had the first intimation of the sudden febrile
attack with which he was seized, from an apparition who addressed him by
his name; concluding, therefore, that his death was at hand, he prepared
himself for the event, which took place the following evening. The poet
Cassius Severus, a short time before he was slain by order of Augustus,
saw, during the night, a human form of gigantic size,—his skin black,
his beard squalid, and his hair dishevelled. The phantasm was, perhaps,
not unlike the evil genius of Lord Byron’s Manfred:—

“I see a dusk and awful figure rise
Like an infernal god from out the earth;
His face wrapt in a mantle, and his form
Robed as with angry clouds; he stands between
Thyself and me—but I do fear him not.”

The emperor Julian was struck with a spectre clad in rags, yet bearing
in his hands a horn of plenty, which was covered with a linen cloth.
Thus emblematically attired, the spirit walked mournfully past the
hangings of the apostate’s tent[57].

We may now advert to the superstitious narratives of the middle ages,
which are replete with the notices of similar marvellous apparitions.
When Bruno, the Archbishop of Wirtzburg, a short period before his
sudden death, was sailing with Henry the Third, he descried a terrific
spectre standing upon a rock which overhung the foaming waters, by whom
he was hailed in the following words:—“Ho! Bishop, I am thy evil genius.
Go whether thou choosest, thou art and shalt be mine. I am not now sent
for thee, but soon thou shalt see me again.” To a spirit commissioned on
a similar errand, the prophetic voice may be probably referred, which
was said to have been heard by John Cameron, the Bishop of Glasgow,
immediately before his decease. He was summoned by it, says Spottiswood,
“to appear before the tribunal of Christ, there to atone for his
violence and oppressions.”

“I shall not pursue the subject of Genii much farther. The notion of
every man being attended by an evil genius, was abandoned much earlier
than the far more agreeable part of the same doctrine, which taught
that, as an antidote to this influence, each individual was also
accompanied by a benignant spirit. “The ministration of angels,” says a
writer in the Athenian oracle, “is certain, but the manner _how_, is the
knot to be untied.” ’Twas generally thought by the ancient philosophers,
that not only kingdoms had their tutelary guardians, but that every
person had his particular genius, or good angel, to protect and admonish
him by dreams, visions, &c. We read that Origin, Hierome, Plato, and
Empedocles, in Plutarch, were also of this opinion; and the Jews
themselves, as appears by that instance of Peter’s deliverance out of
prison. They believed it could not be Peter, but his angel. But for the
particular attendance of bad angels, we believe it not; and we must deny
it, till it finds better proof than conjecture.”

Such were the objects of superstitious reverence, derived from the
Pantheon of Greece and Rome, the whole synod of which was supposed to
consist of demons, who were still actively bestirring themselves to
delude mankind. But in the West of Europe, a host of other demons, far
more formidable, were brought into play, who had their origin in Celtic,
Teutonic, and even Eastern fables; and as their existence, as well as
influence, was not only by the early Christians, but even by the
reformers, boldly asserted, it was long before the rites to which they
had been accustomed were totally eradicated. Thus in Orkney, for
instance, it was customary, even during the last century, for lovers to
meet within the pale of a large circle of stones, which had been
dedicated to the chief of the ancient Scandinavian deities. Through a
hole in one of the pillars, the hands of contracting parties were
joined, and the faith they plighted, was named the promise of Odin, to
violate which was infamous. But the influence of the _Dii_ Majores of
the Edda was slight and transient, in comparison with that of the
duergar or dwarfs, who figure away in the same mythology, and whose
origin is thus recited. Odin and his brothers killed the giant Ymor,
from whose wound ran so much blood that all the families of the earth
were drowned, except one that saved himself on board a bark. These gods
then made, of the giant’s bones of his flesh and his blood, the earth,
the waters, and the heavens. But in the body of the monster, several
worms had in the course of putrefaction been engendered, which, by order
of the gods, partook of both human shape and reason. These little beings
possessed the most delicate figures, and always dwelt in subterraneous
caverns or clefts in the rocks. They were remarkable for their riches,
their activity, and their malevolence[58]. This is the origin of our
modern faries, who, at the present day, are described as a people of
small stature, gaily drest in habiliments of green[59]. They possess
material shapes, with the means, however, of making themselves
invisible. They multiply their species; they have a relish for the same
kind of food that affords sustenance to the human race, and when, for
some festal occasion, they would regale themselves with good beef or
mutton, they employ elf arrows to bring down their victims. At the same
time, they delude the shepherds with the substitution of some vile
substance, or illusory image, possessing the same form as that of the
animal they had taken away. These spirits are much addicted to music,
and when they make their excursions, a most exquisite band of music
never fails to accompany them in their course. They are addicted to the
abstraction of the human species, in whose place they leave substitutes
for living beings, named Changelings, the unearthly origin of whom is
known by their mortal imbecility, or some wasting disease. When a limb
is touched with paralysis, a suspicion often arises that it has been
touched by these spirits, or that, instead of the sound member, an
insensible mass of matter has been substituted in its place.

In England, the opinions originally entertained relative to the duergar
or dwarfs, have sustained considerable modifications, from the same
attributes being assigned to them as to the Persian _peris_, an
imaginary race of intelligences, whose offices of benevolence were
opposed to the spightful interference of evil spirits. Whence this
confusion in proper Teutonic mythology has originated, is doubtful;
conjectures have been advanced, that it may be traced to the intercourse
the Crusaders had with the Saracens; and that from Palestine was
imported the corrupted name, derived from the peris, of _faries_; for
under such a title the duegar of the Edda are now generally recognized;
the malevolent character of the dwarfs being thus sunk in the opposite
qualities of the peris, the fairies. Blessing became in England,
proverbial: “Grant that the sweet fairies may nightly put money in your
shoes, and sweep your house clean.” In more general terms, the wish
denoted, “Peace be to the house[60].

Fairies, for many centuries, have been the objects of spectral
impressions. In the case of a poor woman of Scotland, Alison Pearson,
who suffered for witchcraft in the year 1586, they probably resulted
from some plethoric state of the system, which was followed by
paralysis. Yet, for these illusive images, to which the popular
superstition of the times had given rise, the poor creature was indicted
for holding communication with demons, under which light fairies were
then considered, and burnt at a stake. During her illness, she was not
unfrequently impressed with sleeping and waking visions, in which she
held an intercourse with the queen of the Elfland and the _good
neighbours_. Occasionally, these capricious spirits would condescend to
afford her bodily relief; at other times, they would add to the severity
of her pains. In such trances or dreams, she would observe her cousin,
Mr. William Sympsoune, of Stirling, who had been conveyed away to the
hills by the fairies, from whom she received a salve that would cure
every disease, and of which the Archbishop of St. Andrews deigned
himself to reap the benefit. It is said in the indictment against her,
that “being in Grange Muir with some other folke, she, being sick, lay
downe; and, when alone, there came a man to her clad in green, who said
to her, if she would be faithful, he would do her good; but she being
feared, cried out; but nae bodie came to her, so she said, if he came in
God’s name, and for the gude of her soul, it was all well; but he gaed
away; he appeared another tyme like a lustie man, and many men and women
with him—at seeing him she signed herself, and pray and past with them,
and saw them making merrie with pypes, and gude cheir and wine;—she was
carried with them, and when she telled any of these things, she was
sairlie tormented by them, and the first time she gaid with them, she
gat a sair straike frae one of them, which took all the poustie (power)
of her side frae her, and left an ill-far’d mark on her side.

“She saw the gude neighbours make their saws (salves) with panns and
fyres, and they gathered the herbs before the sun was up, and they cam
verie fearful sometimes to her, and flaire (scared) her very sair, which
made her cry, and threatened they would use her worse than before; and
at last, they tuck away the power of her haile syde frae her, and made
her lye many weeks. Sometimes they would come and sit by her, and
promise that she should never want if she would be faithful, but if she
would speak and telle of them, they would murther her. Mr. William
Sympsoune is with them who healed her, and telt her all things;—he is a
young man, not six yeares older than herself, and he will appear to her
before the court comes;—he told her he was taken away by them; and he
bid her sign herself that she be not taken away, for the teind of them
are tane to hell every yeare[61].”

Another apparition of a similar kind may be found on the pamphlet which
was published A. D. 1696, under the patronage of Dr. Fowler, Bishop of
Glocester, relative to Ann Jefferies, “who was fed for six months by a
small sort of airy people, called fairies.” There is every reason to
suppose, that this female was either affected with hysteria, or with
that highly excited state of nervous irritability, which, as I have
shewn, gives rise to ecstatic illusions. The account of her first fit is
the only one which relates to the present subject. In the year 1695,
says her historian, “she then being nineteen years of age, and one day
knitting in an arbour in the garden, there came over the hedges to her
(as she affirmed) six persons of small stature, all clothed in green,
and which she called _fairies_: upon which she was so frightened, that
she fell into a kind of convulsive fit: but when we found her in this
condition, we brought her into the house, and put her to bed, and took
great care of her. As soon as she was recovered out of the fit, she
cries out, ‘they are just gone out of the window; they are just gone out
of the window. Do you not see them?’ And thus, in the height of her
sickness, she would often cry out, and that with eagerness; which
expressions we attributed to her distemper, supposing her light-headed.”
This narrative of the girl seemed highly interesting to her
superstitious neighbours, and she was induced to relate far more
wonderful stories, upon which not the least dependance can be placed, as
the sympathy she excited eventually induced her to become a rank
impostor[62].

But besides fairies, or elves, which formed the subject of many spectral
illusions, a domestic spirit deserves to be mentioned, who was once held
in no small degree of reverence. In most northern countries of Europe
there were few families that were without a shrewd and knavish sprite,
who, in return for the attention or neglect which he experienced, was
known to

——“sometimes labour in the quern,
And bootless make the breathless housewife churn;
And sometimes make the drink to bear no barm!”

Mr. Douce, in his Illustrations of Shakspeare, has shewn, that the
Samogitæ, a people formerly inhabiting the shores of the Baltic, who
remained idolatrous so late as the 15th century, had a deity named
Putseet, whom they invoked to live with them, by placing in the barn,
every night, a table covered with bread, butter, cheese, and ale. If
these were taken away, good fortune was to be expected; but if they were
left, nothing but bad luck. This spirit is the same as the goblin-groom,
Puck, or Robin Good-fellow of the English, whose face and hands were
either of a russet or green colour, who was attired in a suit of
leather, and armed with a flail. For a much lesser fee than was
originally given him, he would assist in threshing, churning, grinding
malt or mustard, and sweeping the house at midnight[63]. A similar tall
“lubbar fiend,” habited in a brown garb, was known in Scotland. Upon the
condition of a little wort being laid by for him, or the occasional
sprinkling, upon a sacrificial stone, of a small quantity of milk, he
would ensure the success of many domestic operations. According to Olaus
Magnus, the northern nations regarded domestic spirits of this
description, as the souls of men who had given themselves up during life
to illicit pleasures, and were doomed, as a punishment, to wander about
the earth, for a certain time, in the peculiar shape which they assumed,
and to be bound to mortals in a sort of servitude. It is natural,
therefore, to expect, that these familiar spirits would be the subjects
of many apparitions, of which a few relations are given in Martin’s
Account of the Second Sight in Scotland. “A spirit,” says this writer,
“called Browny, was frequently seen in all the most considerable
families in the isles and the north of Scotland, in the shape of a tall
man; but within these twenty or thirty years, he is seen but rarely.”

It is useless to pursue this subject much farther: in the course of a
few centuries, the realms of superstition were increased to almost an
immeasurable extent; the consequence was, that the air, the rocks, the
seas, the rivers, nay, every lake, pool, brook, or spring, were so
filled with spirits, both good and evil, that of each province it might
be said, in the words of the Roman satirist, “Nosiba regio tam plena est
numinibus, ut facilius possis deum quam hominem invenire.” Hence the
modification which took place of systems of demonology, so as to admit
of the classification of all descriptions of devils, whether Teutonic,
Celtic, or Eastern systems of mythology. “Our schoolmen and other
divines,” says Burton in his Anatomy of Melancholy, “make nine kinds of
bad devils, as Dionysius hath of angels. In the _first rank_, are those
false gods of the Gentiles, which were adored heretofore in several
idols, and gave oracles at Delphos and elsewhere, whose prince is
Beelzebub. The _second rank_ is of liars and equivocators, as Apollo,
Pythias, and the like. The _third_ are those vessels of anger, inventors
of all mischief, as that of Theutus in Plato. Esay calls them vessels of
fury: their prince is Belial. The _fourth_ are malicious, revengeful
devils, and their prince is Asmodeus. The _fifth_ kind are coseners,
such as belong to magicians and witches; their prince is Satan. The
sixth are those aërial devils that corrupt the air, and cause plagues,
thunders, fires, &c. spoken of in Apocalypse and Paule; the Ephesians
name them the prince of the air: Meresin is their prince. The _seventh_
is a destroyer, captaine of the furies, causing wars, tumults,
combustions, uproares, mentioned in the Apocalypse, and called Abaddon.
The _eighth_ is that accusing or calumniating devil, whom the Greeks
call Διάβολος, that drives us to despair. The _ninth_ are those tempters
in several kindes, and their prince is Mammon.”

But this arrangement was not comprehensive enough; for, as Burton adds,
“no place was void, but all full of spirits, devils, or other
inhabitants; not so much as an haire-breadth was empty in heaven, earth,
or waters, above or under the earth; the earth was not so full of flies
in summer as it was at all times of invisible devils.” Pneumatologists,
therefore, made two grand distinctions of demons; there were celestial
demons, who inhabited the regions higher than the moon; while those of
an inferior rank, as the Manes or Lemures, were either nearer the earth,
or grovelled on the ground. Psellus, however, “a great observer of the
nature of devils,” seems to have thought, that such a classification
destroyed all distinction between good and evil spirits: he, therefore,
denied that the latter ever ascended the regions above the moon, and
contending for this principle, founded a system of demonology, which had
for its basis the natural history and habitations of all demons. He
named his first class _fiery devils_. They wandered in the region near
the moon, but were restrained from entering into that luminary; they
displayed their power in blazing stars, in fire-drakes, in counterfeit
suns and moons, and in the _euerpo santo_, or meteoric lights, which, in
vessels at sea, flit from mast to mast, and forebode foul weather. It
was supposed that these demons occasionally resided in the furnaces of
Hecla, Etna, or Vesuvius. The second class consisted of aërial devils.
They inhabited the atmosphere, causing tempests, thunder and lightning;
rending asunder oaks, firing steeples and houses, smiting men and
beasts, showering down from the skies, stones[64], wool, and even frogs;
counterfeiting in the clouds the battles of armies, raising whirlwinds,
fires, and corrupting the air, so as to induce plagues. The third class
was _terrestrial devils_, such as lares, genii, fawns, satyrs,
wood-nymphs, foliots, Robin good-fellows, or trulli. The fourth class
were _aqueous devils_; as the various description of water-nymph, or
mermen, or of merwomen. The fifth were _subterranean devils_, better
known by the name dæmones itallici, metal-men, _Getuli_ or Cobals. They
preserved treasure in the earth, and prevented it from being suddenly
revealed; they were also the cause of horrible earthquakes. Psellus’s
sixth class of devils were named lucifugi; they delighted in darkness;
they entered into the bowels of men, and tormented those whom they
possessed with phrenzy and the falling sickness. By this power they were
distinguished from earthly and aërial devils; they could only enter into
the human mind, which they either deceived or provoked with unlawful
affections.

Nor were speculations wanting with regard to the common nature of these
demons. Psellus conceived that their bodies did not consist merely of
one element, although he was far from denying that this might have been
the case before the fall of Lucifer. It was his opinion, that devils
possessed corporeal frames capable of sensation; that they could both
feel and be felt; they could injure and be hurt; that they lamented when
they were beaten, and that if struck into the fire, they even left
behind them ashes,—a fact which was demonstrated in a very satisfactory
experiment made by some philosophers upon the borders of Italy; that
they were nourished with food peculiar to themselves, not receiving the
aliment through the gullet, but absorbing it from the exterior surface
of their bodies, after the manner of a sponge; that they did not hurt
cattle from malevolence, but from mere love of the natural and temperate
heat and moisture of these animals; that they disliked the heat of the
sun, because it dried too fast; and, lastly, that they attained a great
age. Thus, Cardan had a fiend bound to him twenty-eight years, who was
forty-two years old, and yet considered very young. He was informed,
from this very authentic source of intelligence, that devils lived from
two to three hundred years, and that their souls died with their bodies.
The very philosophical statement was, nevertheless, combated by other
observers. “Manie,” says Scot, “affirmed that spirits were of aier,
because they had been cut in sunder and closed presentlie againe, and
also because they vanished away so suddenlie.”


“_The_ NARRATIVE _of the_ DEMON OF TEDWORTH, _or the disturbances at_
MR. MONPESSON’S _house, caused by_ WITCHCRAFT _and_ VILLAINY OF THE
DRUMMER.”

“In winter’s tedious nights, sit by the fire
With good old folks; and let them tell the tales
Of woeful ages long ago betid.”

“Mr. John Monpesson of Tedworth, in the County of Wilts, being about the
middle of March, in the year 1661, at a neighbouring town called Ludlow,
and hearing a drummer beat there, he enquired of the bailiff of the town
at whose house he then was, what it meant. The bailiff told him, that
they had for some days past been annoyed by an idle drummer, who
demanded money of the constable by virtue of a pretended pass, which he
thought was counterfeited. On hearing this, Mr. Monpesson sent for the
fellow, and asked him by what authority he went up and down the country
in that manner with his drum. The drummer answered, that he had good
authority, and produced his pass, with a warrant under the hands of Sir
William Cawley, and Colonel Ayliff, of Gretenham. Mr. Monpesson,
however, being acquainted with the hand-writing of these gentlemen,
discovered that the pass and warrant were counterfeit, upon which he
commanded the vagrant to lay down his drum, and at the same time gave
him in charge to a constable, to carry him before the next justice of
the peace, to be farther examined and punished. The fellow then
confessed that the pass and warrant were forged, and begged earnestly to
be forgiven and to have his drum restored: upon this Mr. Monpesson told
him, that if, upon enquiry from Colonel Ayliff, whose drummer he
represented himself to be, he should turn out to be an honest man, he
should listen to his entreaty and have the drum back again; but that, in
the mean time, he would take care of it. The drum, therefore, was left
in the bailiff’s hand; and the drummer went off in charge of the
constable, who, it appears, was prevailed upon, by the fellow’s
entreaties, to allow him to escape.

About the middle of April following, at a time when Mr. Monpesson was
preparing for a journey to London, the bailiff sent the drum to his
house. On his return from his journey, his wife informed him that they
had been very much alarmed in the night by thieves, and that the house
had like to have been torn down. In confirmation of this alarm, Mr.
Monpesson had not been above three nights at home, when the same noise
was again heard which had disturbed the family in his absence. It
consisted of a tremendous knocking at the doors, and thumping on the
walls of the house; upon which Mr. M. got out of bed, armed himself with
a brace of pistols, opened the street door to ascertain the cause, which
he had no sooner done, than the noise removed to another door, which he
also opened, went out, and walked round the house; but could discover
nothing, although he heard a strange noise and hollow sound. He had no
sooner returned and got into bed, than he was again disturbed by a noise
and drumming on the top of the house, which continued for a length of
time, and then gradually subsided, as if it went off into the air.

The noise of thumping and drumming, after this, was very frequent;
usually for five nights together, when there would be an intermission of
three. The noise was on the outside of the house, which principally
consisted of board; and usually came on just as the family was going to
bed, whether that happened early or late. After continuing these
annoyances for a month on the outside of the house, it at length made
bold to come into the room where the drum lay, four or five nights in
every seven; coming always on after they had got into bed, and
continuing for two hours after. The signal for the appearance of the
noise was the hearing of a hurling of the air over the house; and when
it was about to retire, the drum would beat the same as if a guard were
being relieved. It continued in this room for the space of two months,
during which time Mr. Monpesson lay there to observe it. In the early
part of the night, it used to be very troublesome, but after it had
continued two hours, all would be quiet again.

During the prevalence of this disturbance, Mrs. Monpesson was brought to
bed, and the night on which this occurrence took place, there was but
very little noise made, nor any at all for the three subsequent weeks of
her confinement. After this polite and well-timed cessation, it returned
in a sudden and more violent manner than before; it followed and teased
their youngest children, and beat against their bedstead so violently
that every moment they were expected to be broken to pieces. On placing
their hands upon them at this time, no blows were felt, although they
were perceived to shake exceedingly. For an hour together the drum would
beat roundheads and cuckold, the tat-too, and several other martial
pieces, as well as any drummer could possibly execute them. After this,
a scratching would be heard under the children’s beds, as if something
that had iron claws were at work. It would lift the children up in their
beds, follow them from one room to another, and for a while only haunted
them, without playing any other pranks.

There was a cockloft in the house, which had not been observed to be
troubled; and to this place the children were removed; and were always
put to bed before daylight disappeared, but here they were no sooner
laid, than their disturber was at his work again with them.

On the fifth of November, 1661, a terrible noise was kept up; and one of
Mr. Monpesson’s servants observing two boards moving in the children’s
room, asked that one might be given to him; upon which a board came
(nothing moving it that he saw) within a yard of him; the man said
again, _let me have it in my hand_; when it was brought quite close to
him, and in this manner it was continued moving up and down, to and fro,
for at least twenty minutes together. Mr. Monpesson, however, forbade
his servant to take liberties with the invisible and troublesome guest
in future. This circumstance took place in the day-time, and was
witnessed by a whole room full of people. The morning this occurred, it
left a very offensive sulphureous smell behind it. At night, the
minister of the parish, one Mr. Cragg, and several of the neighbours,
paid Mr. M. a visit. The minister prayed at the children’s bedside, when
the demon was then extremely troublesome and boisterous. During time of
prayer it retired into the cockloft, but as soon as prayers were over it
returned; when in the presence and sight of the company, the chairs
began to walk and strut about the room of their own accord, the
children’s shoes were thrown over their heads, and every thing loose
moved about the room. At the same time, a bedpost was thrown at the
minister, which struck him on the leg, but so gently that a lock of wool
could not have fallen more gently; and it was observed, that it stopped
just where it fell, without rolling or otherwise moving from the place.

In consequence of the demon tormenting the children so incessantly, he
had them removed to a neighbour’s house, taking his eldest daughter, who
was about ten years of age, into his own chamber, where it had not been
for a month before; but, as soon as she was in bed, the noise began
there again, and the drumming continued for three weeks with other
noises; and if any particular thing was called for to be beaten on the
drum, it would perform it. The children were brought home again, in
consequence of the house where they were placed being crowded with
strangers. They were now placed in the parlour, which, it was remarked,
had hitherto not been disturbed; but no sooner were they here, than
their tormentor, while they were in bed, amused himself with pulling
their hair and bedgowns, without offering any other violence.

It was remarked, that when the noise was loudest, and when it came with
the most sudden and surprising violence, no dog about the house would
move or bark, though the knocking and thumping were often so boisterous
and rude, that they were heard at a considerable distance in the fields,
and awakened the neighbours in the village, some of whom lived very near
this house. Not unfrequently the servants would be lifted up, with their
bed, to a considerable height, and then let gently down again without
harm; at other times it would lie like a great weight upon their feet.

About the end of December, 1661, the drumming was less frequent, but
then a noise like the chinking of money was substituted for it,
occasioned, as it was thought, in consequence of something Mr.
Monpesson’s mother had said the day before to a neighbour, who spoke
about fairies leaving money behind them; _viz._ that she should like it
well, if it would leave them some to make them amends for the trouble it
had caused them. The following night, a great chinking and jingling of
money was heard all over the house. After this it left off its ruder
pranks, and amused itself in little apish and less troublesome tricks.
On Christmas morning, a little before daylight, one of the little boys
was hit, as he was getting out of bed, upon a sore place on his heel,
with the latch of the door, the pin of which, that fastened it to the
door, was so small, that it was a matter of no little difficulty for any
one else to pick it. The night after Christmas, it threw the old
gentlewoman’s clothes about the room, and hid her bible in the ashes;
with a number of other mischievous tricks of the same kind.

After this, it became very troublesome to one of Mr. Monpesson’s servant
men, a stout fellow, and of sober conversation. This man slept in the
house during the greater part of the disturbance; and for several nights
something would attempt to pull the bedclothes off him, which he often,
though not always, prevented by main force; his shoes were frequently
thrown at his head, and sometimes he would find himself forcibly held,
as it were, hand and feet; but he found that when he could use a sword
which he had by him, and struck with it, the spirit let go his hold.

Some short time after these contests, a son of Mr. Thomas Bennet, for
whom the drummer had sometimes worked, came to the house, and mentioned
some words to Mr. Monpesson that the drummer had spoken, which it seems
were not well taken; for they were no sooner in bed, than the drum began
to beat in a most violent manner: the gentleman got up and called his
man, who was lying with Mr. Monpesson’s servant just mentioned, whose
name was John. As soon as Mr. Bennet’s man was gone, John heard a
rustling noise in his chamber, as if a person in silks were moving up
and down; he immediately put out his hand for his sword, which he felt
was withheld by some one, and it was with difficulty and much tugging,
that he got it again into his possession, which he had no sooner done,
than the spectre left him; and it was always remarked it avoided a
sword. About the beginning of January, 1662, they used to hear a singing
in the chimney before it descended; and one night, about this time,
lights were seen in the house. One of them came into Mr. Monpesson’s
chamber, which appeared blue and glimmering, and caused a great
stiffness in the eyes of those who beheld it. After the light
disappeared, something was heard walking or creeping up stairs, as if
without shoes. The light was seen four or five times in the children’s
chamber; and the maids confidently affirm, that the doors were at least
ten times opened or shut in their presence; and that, when they were
opened, they heard a noise as if half a dozen had entered together; some
of which were afterwards heard to walk about the room, and one rustled
about as if it had been dressed in silk, similar to that Mr. Monpesson
himself heard.

While the demon was in one of his knocking moods, and at a time when
many were present, a gentleman of the company said, “Satan, if the
drummer set thee to work, give three knocks and no more;” which it did
very distinctly, and stopped. The same gentleman then knocked to hear if
it would answer him as it was accustomed to do. For further proof, he
required it, if it actually were the drummer that employed him as the
agent of his malice, to give five knocks and no more that night; which
it did, and quietly left the house for the remainder of the night. This
was done in the presence of Sir Thomas Chamberlaine of Oxfordshire, and
many other creditable persons.

On Saturday morning, an hour before daylight, January 10, a drum was
heard beating upon the outside of Mr. Monpesson’s chamber, from whence
it went to the other end of the house, where some gentlemen strangers
lay, and commenced playing at their door four or five different tunes;
and at length flew off in the air. The next night, a blacksmith in the
village, and Mr. Monpesson’s man John, who was lying with him, heard a
noise in the room, as if somebody were shoeing a horse; and something
came with something like a pair of pincers, and nipped at the
blacksmith’s nose the whole of the night.

Getting up one morning to go a journey, Mr. Monpesson heard a great
noise below, where the children lay; and on running down instantly with
a pistol in his hand, he heard a voice cry out, a witch! a witch!
similar to one they had heard on a former occasion. On his entering the
apartment, all became quiet again.

The demon having one night played some little pranks at the foot of Mr.
Monpesson’s bed, it went into another bed, where one of his daughters
lay, and passed from one side to the other, lifting her up as it passed
under her. At that time there were three kinds of noises in the bed.
They attempted to thrust at it with a sword, but it continually evaded
them. The following night it came panting like a dog out of breath, when
some one present took a bedpost to strike at it, when it was immediately
snatched out of her hand; and company coming up stairs at the same time,
the room was filled with a nauseous stench, and very hot, although there
was no fire on, and during a very sharp winter’s night. It continued
panting an hour and a half, panting and scratching; and afterwards went
into the adjoining chamber, where it began to knock a little, and seemed
to rattle a chair; thus it continued for two or three nights in
succession. The old lady’s bible after this was found again among the
ashes, with the leaves downwards. It was taken up by Mr. Monpesson, who
observed that it lay open at the third chapter of St. Mark, where
mention is made of the unclean spirits falling down before our Saviour,
and of his giving power to the twelve Apostles to cast out devils, and
of the Scribes’ opinion, and that he cast them out through Beelzebub.

The following morning ashes were scattered over the chamber floor, to
see what impressions would be left upon it; in the morning, in one place
they found the resemblance of a great claw in another that of a smaller
one, some letters in another, which could not be decyphered, besides a
number of circles and scratches in the ashes, which no one understood
except the demon itself.

About this time, the author of the narration went to the house to
enquire after the truth of the circumstances which made so much noise in
that part of the country. The demon had left off drumming, and the
terrible noises it was in the habit of making before he arrived; but
most of the remarkable facts already related, were confirmed to him
there by several of the neighbours, on whose veracity he could depend,
who had witnessed them. It now used to haunt the children after they
were gone to bed. On the night he was there, the children went to bed
about 8 o’clock; a maid servant immediately came down and informed us
that the spirit was come. The neighbours then present went away, as well
as two ministers who had previously been some time in the house, but Mr.
Monpesson the author, and another gentleman who came with him, went up
to the room where the children were in bed. A scratching was heard as
they went up stairs, and just as they got into the room, it was
perceived just behind the bolster of the bed in which the children lay,
and appeared to be lying against the tick. The noise it made was like
that made with long nails upon the bolster. There were two little girls,
about seven or eight years of age, in the bed. Their hands were outside
the bedclothes, so that it was perfectly visible the noise was not made
by them which was behind their heads: they had been so used to it of
late, and always with some present in the chamber, that they seemed to
take very little notice of it. The narrator, who was standing at the
head of the bed, thrust his hand behind the bolster from whence the
noise proceeded, when it was immediately heard in another part of the
bed; but as soon as his hand was taken away, it returned to the same
place as before. On being told that it would imitate noises, he made
trial by scratching several times upon the sheet, as five, seven, and
ten times: it exactly replied to them by equal numbers. He looked under
and behind the bed, grasped the bolster, sounded the wall, and made
every possible search to find out any trick, contrivance, or other
cause, as well as his friend, but could discover nothing. So that in
truth he concluded, that the noise was made by some spirit or demon.
After it had scratched about for half an hour or more, it got into the
middle of the bed under the children, where it lay panting loudly, like
a dog out of breath. The author then put his hand upon the place, and
plainly felt the bed bearing up against it, as if it contained something
within thrusting it up. He grasped the feather to feel if he could
distinguish any thing alive; then looked every where about to see if
there were any dog or cat, or other creature, in the room; every one
present followed his example, but still they discovered nothing. The
motion it caused by its panting was so violent, that it had a visible
effect on the room and windows. In this manner it continued for half an
hour, the time the author was present. During this panting, something
was seen in a linen bag that was hung up against another bed, that was
taken for a mouse or rat, but upon the closest examination of it,
nothing was found in it of any description.

The author and his friend afterwards slept in the very identical chamber
where the principal disturbance had been first made. He was awakened by
a terrible noise made on the outside of the chamber door. He awoke his
friend, and asked three distinct times who was there, but received no
answer. At last he exclaimed, “_in the name of God who is it, and what
would you have?_ To which a voice answered, _nothing with you_. Thinking
it was some of the servants of the house, they went to sleep again.
Mentioning, however, the circumstance the next morning to Mr. Monpesson,
he declared that no one of the house lay that way, or had any business
thereabouts, and that none of his servants had got up until they were
called by him some time after daylight. This the servants confirmed, and
protested that the noise was not made by them. Previous to this, Mr.
Monpesson had told us, that it would go away in the middle of the night,
and return at different times about four o’clock, which was supposed to
be about the hour it was heard by the author and his friend.

Another circumstance connected with this seemingly mysterious business
was, that the author’s servant coming up to him in the morning, told
him, that one of his horses, the one which he had rode, was all in a
sweat, and appeared in every other respect as if it had been out all
night. His friend and him went down to the stable, and actually found
him in the state he was represented to be. On inquiry how the horse had
been treated, he was assured that the animal had been well fed, and
taken care of as he used to be; his servant besides was extremely
careful of his horses. “The horse,” says the author, “I had had a good
time, and never knew but he was very sound. But after I had rid him a
mile or two very gently over a plain down from Mr. Monpesson’s house, he
fell lame, and having made a hard shift to bring me home, died in two or
three days, no one being able to imagine what he ailed. This, I confess,
might be the consequence of an accident, or some unusual distemper, but
all things put together, it seems very probable that it was somewhat
else.”

Mr. Monpesson then stated, that one morning a light appeared in the
children’s chamber, and a voice was heard crying—a witch! a witch! for
at least an hundred times together. At another time, seeing some wood
move on the chimney of a room where he was, he fired a pistol among it;
and on examining the place afterwards, several drops of blood were
discovered on the hearth, and on several parts of the stairs. For two or
three nights after the discharge of the pistol nothing was heard, but it
returned, and so persecuted a little child newly taken from the nurse,
that the poor infant was not suffered to rest either day or night; nor
would the mischievous demon suffer a candle to burn in the room, but
either ran up the chimney with them alight, or threw them under the bed.
It so frightened this child by leaping upon it, that it continued in
fits for several hours; and ultimately they were obliged to remove the
children out of the house. Something was heard the next night, about the
hour of midnight, coming up stairs; it knocked at Mr. Monpesson’s door,
but he not answering, it went up another pair of stairs to his man’s
chamber, and appeared to him at his bed foot. The exact shape and
proportion of the demon he could not discover; all he saw was a great
body, with two red and glaring eyes, which for some time were steadily
fixed upon him; and at length they disappeared.

On another occasion, in the presence of strangers, it purred in the
children’s bed like a cat, and lifted the children up so forcibly, that
six men could not keep them down; upon which they removed the children
to another bed, but no sooner were they laid here than this became more
troubled than the first. In this manner it continued for four hours, and
so unmercifully beat the poor children’s legs against the posts, that
they were obliged to sit up all night. It then emptied chamber-pots, and
threw ashes into the beds, and placed a long iron pike in Mr.
Monpesson’s, and a knife into his mother’s. It would fill porringers
with ashes, throw every thing about, and kick up the devil’s diversion
from morning till night, and from night till morning.

About the beginning of April, 1663, a gentleman that lay in the house,
had all his money turned black in his pockets; and one morning Mr.
Monpesson going into his stable, found the horse he was accustomed to
ride upon, lying on the ground with one of its hind legs in its mouth,
and fastened there in such a manner, that several men with a leaver, had
the greatest difficulty in getting it out. After this there were a
number of other remarkable things occurred, but the author’s account
extends no farther; with the exception that Mr. Monpesson wrote him
word, that the house was afterwards, for several nights, beset with
seven or eight beings in the shape of men, who, as soon as a gun was
discharged, would scud away into an adjoining arbour.

The drummer, however, it appears, was apprehended in consequence of
these strange and mysterious occurrences. He was first, it seems,
committed to Gloucester jail for stealing, where a Wiltshire man going
to see him, the drummer enquired the news in Wiltshire: the reply was,
none: No, returned he, do you not hear of the drumming at a gentleman’s
house at Tedworth? That I do, said the other, enough: “I, quoth the
drummer, I have plagued him (or something to that purpose) and he never
shall be quiet until he has made me satisfaction for taking away my
drum. Upon information made to this effect, the drummer was tried for a
wizzard at Sarum, and all the main circumstances here related being
sworn to at the assizes, by the minister of the parish, and several
others of the most intelligent and substantial inhabitants, who had been
eye and earwitnesses of them, from time to time, for many years past;
the drummer was sentenced to transportation, and accordingly sent away;
and as the story runs, ’tis said, that by raising storms, and terrifying
the seamen, he contrived, some how or other, to get back again. And what
is still as remarkable, is, that during his restraint and absence, Mr.
Monpesson’s house remained undisturbed; but as soon as the demon of his
quiet returned, he fell to his old tricks again as bad as ever.”

The drummer had been a soldier under Cromwell, and used to talk much of
“gallant books” which he had of an old fellow, who was counted a
wizzard.

On the authority of Mr. Glanvil, who had it from Mr. Monpesson, we have
the following story.

“The gentleman, Mr. Hill, who was with me, being in company with one
Compton of Somersetshire, who practised physic, and pretends to strange
matters, related to him this story of Mr. Monpesson’s disturbance. The
physician told him, he was sure it was nothing but a rendezvous of
witches, and that for an hundred pounds he would undertake to rid the
house of all disturbance. In pursuit of this discourse, he talkt of many
high things, and having drawn my friend into another room, apart from
the rest of the company, said, he would make him sensible that he could
do something more than ordinary, and asked him who he desired to see;
Mr. Hill had no great confidence in his talk, but yet being earnestly
pressed to name some one, he said he desired to see no one so much as
his wife, who was then many miles distant from them at her home. Upon
this, Compton took up a looking-glass that was in the room, and setting
it down again, bid my friend look into it, which he did, and then, as he
most solemnly and seriously professeth, he saw the exact image of his
wife, in that habit which she then wore, and working at her needle in
such a part of the room, there also represented, in which and about
which time she really was, as he found upon enquiring upon his return
home. The gentleman himself averred this to me, and he is a sober,
intelligent, and credible person. Compton had no knowledge of him
before, and was an utter stranger to the person of his wife. The same
man is again alluded to, in the story of the witchcrafts of Elizabeth
Styles, whom he discovered to be a witch, by foretelling her coming into
a house, and going out again without speaking. He was by all accounted a
very odd person.”




THE DEMON OF JEDBURGH.


In 1752, when Captain Archibald Douglass, who was then on a recruiting
party in the South of Scotland, his native country, lay in the town of
Jedburgh, his serjeant complained to him that the house in which he was
quartered was haunted by a spirit, which had several times appeared to
him by candle light in a very frightful form. The captain, who was a man
of sense and far from being superstitious, treated the serjeant as a
person who had lost his reason, threatened to cane him as a coward, and
told him that goblins and spirits were beneath the notice of a soldier.
The captain the night following had a strange dream, in which he saw the
landlady of the inn, where the serjeant lay, in company with a great
number of other females, ascending in the air, some riding on brooms,
some on asses, and others on cats, &c. The landlady invited him to
accompany them in their aërial excursion, to which consenting, he got
upon a goat behind one of the women, and was carried with great velocity
to a large heath near London, which he well knew on their arrival.

When all the females had alighted, his ears were suddenly alarmed with a
thousand yells the most hideous that could be conceived, to the sound of
which they all danced in a circle. The captain was placed in the centre;
beholding all the wild vagaries with wonder and horror. When the music
had ceased and the dancing closed, suddenly he found himself by a
phalanx of infernal furies, whose forks were all aimed at his breast.
The horror of this scene suddenly awaked the captain, who was glad to
find himself safe and in a sound skin at his mother’s house, where he
lay that night.

The next morning the serjeant, like the knight of the sorrowful
countenance, waited on the captain for fresh orders, again declaring
that he had seen the apparition which had threatened his life. The
captain heard him with less impatience and inattention than he had the
preceding day, saying, I myself have had a restless night and a terrible
dream, but these things, I tell you again, are beneath the notice of a
soldier. However, continued the captain, I am resolved to sift this
matter till I discover the ground of your complaint. I have a notion
that you, like myself, have been making too free with the bottle. The
serjeant replied, most solemnly declaring that he was most perfectly in
his senses when he saw a frightful spectre standing at the side of his
bed, and which changing its appearance, retired in the shape of a great
black cat, jumping from the window over the church steeple. Now to let
your honour into a secret, continued the soldier, I was informed this
morning, that the landlady is neither more nor less than a witch, and
her goodman is second-sighted, and can tell, awake him from his sleep
when you please, the precise hour of the night, and the exact minute.

To cut short our story, the captain at night accompanied the serjeant,
well provided with fire arms, and a sword, to the chamber alluded to.
Having placed the arms upon the table, he lay down by the soldier’s side
in a bed without curtains, but enclosed with a frame of wainscoting with
sliding doors. At midnight, they heard three knocks on one of the
pannels, when the captain arose, ran to the door, which he found fast
locked, and having a candle, searched every corner of the room without
making any discovery. He lay down a second time, and about an hour after
again heard the knocking three distinct times as before. Attempting to
get up, the whole wainscoting tumbled down upon the bed, the violent
noise of which alarmed the serjeant, who cried out, the witch! the witch
is within! It was a considerable time before they could extricate
themselves from the boarding, but so sooner was the captain disentangled
than he saw a prodigious large sable cat flying to the window, at which
he fired a pistol, and shot off one of its ears.

Next morning the captain called the landlord, and enquired how long his
house had been haunted. The landlord replied, you must ask my wife, when
she returns home, for she is seldom in bed after midnight. Just as the
husband was so saying, the wife came into the kitchen, and falling into
a swoon upon seeing the captain, fell down prostrate on the floor,
discomposed her head-dress, and discovered a terrible wound on the left
side of her head and the want of an ear. The captain swore that he would
take her before the provost, in order that she might be committed for
trial, but the husband interfering, and the captain well knowing that he
could not continue in the country till the next circuit, contented
himself with telling the story among the circle of his friends, none of
whom had the least reason to doubt his veracity, as he was a gentleman
of strict honour, undaunted courage, and tried integrity.—It may be
inferred from this that witches have a capacity of changing their
outward form, and appearing in the shape of a cat, or the like, at the
will; but this might only be in the imagination of the captain and the
serjeant, for it would be hard to account for the loss of this witch’s
real ear, had she changed her body to that of the animal upon which the
captain supposed he had fired.

How to reconcile these and various similar stories to the standard of
common credence, is a task no less difficult than problematical; and to
ascertain the real cause of the scarcity, now-a-days, of such mysterious
and unaccountable occurrences, is at least a proof that the devil has
been losing latterly, from some cause or other, much of his ascendancy
over the human mind. To attempt to explain, or do away with the
supposition, that spirits, apparitions, demons, or other preternatural
agents, “hobgoblins damned,” or undamned, would be to attack the
fundamental parts of the christian religion, which we are told and
taught to believe constitutes a part of the law of the land. The wisest
philosophers, heroes, and vagrants, have all, from the remotest
antiquity downwards, testified to their appearance; and divines
themselves have been equally orthodox, and active in promulgating the
force of their testimony in support of the doctrine of preternatural
agency; which neither the supposition of a morbid imagination,
“contained in tabular views[65] of the various comparative degrees of
faintness, vividness, or intensity, supposed to exist between sensations
and ideas, when conjointly excited or depressed,” can account for on
rational principles, when the mind is curious to be divested of all
these presumed causes. That there are states and conditions of the mind,
when, from intensity of excitement, the imagination may be played upon
no one will deny; but that such causes should always have existed, is
equally as preposterous and absurd—still between these and imposture,
perhaps truth may lie; and then it is a point of scepticism that does
little honour to the social compact, to cast even a shade of doubt on
the moral character of a man, whose veracity was never before impeached
on any other subject.




THE GHOST OF JULIUS CÆSAR.


Marcus Brutus, one of the murderers of Julius Cæsar, being one night in
his tent, saw a monstrous figure come in about the third hour of the
night. Brutus immediately cried out, what art thou, a man or a god? and
why art thou come hither? The spectre answered, I am thy evil genius;
thou shalt see me at Philippi. Brutus calmly answered, I will meet thee
there. However, he did not go, but relating the affair to Cassius, who
being of the sect of Epicurus, and believing nothing of these matters,
told him it was a mere fancy; that there was no such thing as genii or
other spirits, which could appear to men; that even if they should
appear, they could not assume a human shape or voice, and had no power
over men. Though Brutus was somewhat encouraged by those reasons, he
could not entirely get the better of his uneasiness: but this very
Cassius, in the midst of the battle of Philippi, saw Julius Cæsar, whom
he had assassinated, riding up to him full speed, which terrified him so
much, that he fell upon his own sword.


_The ghosts of the slain at the battle of Marathon._

Pausanias writes, that four hundred years after the battle of Marathon,
there were still heard in the place where it was fought, the neighing of
horses, and the shouts of soldiers, animating one another to the fight.
Plutarch also speaks of spectres seen, and dreadful howlings heard in
the public baths, where several citizens of Chœronea, his native town,
had been murdered. He says, that the inhabitants had been obliged to
shut up these baths, but that, notwithstanding the precaution, great
noises were still heard, and dreadful spectres frequently seen by the
neighbours. Plutarch, who is an author of acknowledged gravity and good
sense, frequently makes mention of spectres and apparitions;
particularly he says, that in the famous battle above alluded to,
several soldiers saw the apparition of Theseus fighting for the Greeks
and against the Persians.


_Familiar spirit or ancient Brownie._

It is recorded in Socrates, that after the defeat of the Athenian army
under the prætor Laches, as he was flying in company with the Athenian
general, and came to a place where several roads met, he refused to go
the same road that the others took, and the reason being asked him, he
answered that his genus, or familiar spirit, who frequently attended
him, dissuaded him from it; and the event justified the precaution, for
all those who went a different way, were killed, or made prisoners by
the enemy’s cavalry.




GIPSIES—EGYPTIANS.


In most parts of the continent the gipsies are called _Cingari_, or
_Zingari_; the Spaniards call them _Gitanos_, the French _Bohemiens_ or
_Bohemiennes_.

It is not certain when the Gipsies, as they are now termed, first
appeared in Europe; but mention is made of them in Hungary and Germany,
so early as the year 1417. Within 10 years afterwards we hear of them in
France, Switzerland and Italy. The date of their arrival in England is
more uncertain; it is most probable that it was not until near a century
afterward. In the year 1530, they are spoken of in the following manner,
in the penal statutes.


“Forasmuch as before this time, divers and many outlandish people
calling themselves Egyptians, using no craft nor feat of merchandize,
have come into this realm, and gone from shire to shire, and place to
place, in great company, and used great subtil and crafty means to
deceive the people; bearing them in mind that they, by palmistry,
could tell men’s and women’s fortunes; and so many times, by craft and
subtilty, have deceived the people of their money; and also have
committed many heinous felonies and robberies, to the great hurt and
deceit of the people they have come among,” &c.


This is the preamble to an act, by which the Gipsies were ordered to
quit the realm under heavy penalties. Two subsequent acts, passed in
1555 and 1565, made it death for them to remain in the kingdom; and it
is still on record, that thirteen were executed under these acts, in the
county of Suffolk, a few years before the restoration. It was not till
about the year 1783, that they were repealed.

The Gipsies were expelled France in 1560, and Spain in 1591: but it does
not appear they have been extirpated in any country. Their collective
numbers, in every quarter of the globe, have been calculated at 7 or
800,000[66]. They are most numerous in Asia, and in the northern parts
of Europe. Various have been the opinion relative to their origin. That
they came from Egypt, has been the most prevalent. This opinion (which
has procured them here the name of Gipsies, and in Spain that of
_Gittanos_) arose from some of the first who arrived in Europe,
pretending that they came from that country; which they did, perhaps, to
heighten their reputation for skill in palmistry and the occult
sciences. It is now we believe pretty generally agreed, that they came
originally from Hindostan; since their language so far coincides with
the Hindostanic, that even now, after a lapse of nearly four centuries,
during which they have been dispersed in various foreign countries,
nearly one half of their words are precisely those of Hindostan[67]; and
scarcely any variation is to be found in vocabularies procured from the
Gipsies in Turkey, Hungary, Germany, and those in England[68]. Their
manners, for the most part, coincide, as well as the language, in every
quarter of the globe where they are found; being the same idle wandering
set of beings, and seldom professing any mode of acquiring a livelihood,
except that of fortune-telling[69]. Their religion is always that of the
country in which they reside; and though they are no great frequenters
either of mosques or churches, they generally conform to rites and
ceremonies as they find them established.

Grellman says that, in Germany, they seldom think of any marriage
ceremony; but their children are baptized and the mothers churched. In
England their children are baptized, and their dead buried, according to
the rites of the church; perhaps the marriage ceremony is not more
regarded than in Germany; but it is certain they are sometimes married
in churches. Upon the whole, as Grellman observes, we may certainly
regard the Gipsies as a singular phenomenon in Europe. For the space of
between three and four hundred years they have gone wandering about like
pilgrims and strangers, yet neither time nor example has made in them
any alteration: they remain ever and every where what their fathers
were: Africa makes them no blacker, nor does Europe make them whiter.

Few of the descendants of the aboriginal Gipsies are to be found any
where in Europe, and in England less than any where else. The severity
of the police against this description of the degenerate vagabonds
existing at the present day, have considerably thinned their phalanxes,
and brought them to something like a due sense of the laws and
expectations of civilized society. What remains of them, nevertheless,
contrive one way or other to elude the vigilance of the laws by
different masked callings, under which they ostensibly appear to carry
on their usual traffic.

The modern Gipsies pretend that they derive their origin from the
ancient Egyptians, who were famous for their knowledge in astronomy and
other sciences; and, under the pretence of fortune-telling, find means
to rob or defraud the ignorant and superstitious. To colour their
impostures, they artificially discolour their faces, and speak a kind of
gibberish or cant peculiar to themselves. They rove up and down the
country in large companies, to the great terror of the farmers, from
whose geese, turkeys, and fowls, they take considerable contributions.

When a fresh recruit is admitted into the fraternity, he is to take the
following oath, administered by the principal marauder, after going
through the annexed forms:—

First, a new name is given to him, by which he is ever after to be
called; then standing up in the middle of the assembly, and directing
his face to the _dimber damber_, or principal man of the gang, he
repeats the following oath, which is dictated to him by some experienced
member of the fraternity; namely, “I, Crank Cuffin, do swear to be a
true brother, and that I will, in all things, obey the commands of the
great tawny prince, and keep his counsel, and not divulge the secrets of
my brethren.

“I will never leave nor forsake the company, but observe and keep all
the times of appointment, either by day or by night, in every place
whatever.

“I will not teach any one to cant, nor will I disclose any of our
mysteries to them.

“I will take my prince’s part against all that shall oppose him, or any
of us, according to the utmost of my ability; nor will I suffer him, or
any one belonging to us, to be abused by any strange _Abrams_,
_Rufflers_, _Hookers_, _Paillards_, _Swaddlers_, _Irish Toyles_,
_Swigmen_, _Whip Jacks_, _Jackmen_, _Bawdy Baskets_, _Dommerars_,
_Clapper Dogeons_, _Patricoes_, or _Curtals_; but will defend him, or
them, as much as I can, against all other outliers whatever. I will not
conceal aught I win out of _Libkins_[70], or pun the _Ruffmans_[71], but
will preserve it for the use of the company. Lastly, I will cleave to my
_Doxy-wap_[72], stifly, and will bring her _Duds_[73], _Margery
Prators_[74], _Goblers_[75], _Grunting Cheats_[76], or _Tibs of the
Buttery_[77], or any thing else I can come at, as _winning_[78] for her
wappings.”

The canters, it would appear, have a tradition, that from the three
first articles of this oath, the first founders of a certain boastful,
worshipful fraternity, (who pretend to derive their origin from the
earliest times) borrowed both the hint and the form of their
establishment; and that their pretended derivation of the first word
_Adam_ is a forgery, it being only from the first _Adam Tyler_[70]. At
the admission of a new brother, a general stock is raised for _booze_ or
drink, to make themselves merry on the occasion. As for peckage or
eatables, this they can procure without money, for while some are sent
to break the ruffmans, or woods and bushes, for firing, others are
detached to filch geese, chickens, hens, ducks, or mallards, and pigs.
Their morts, or women, are their butchers, who presently make bloody
work with what living things are brought to them; and having made holes
in the ground under some remote hedge, in an obscure place, they make a
fire, and boil or broil their food; and when it is done enough, fall to
work tooth and nail; and having eaten more like beasts than human
beings, they drink more like swine than men, entertaining each other
during the time with songs in the canting dialect. As they live, so they
lie together, promiscuously, and know not how to claim a property either
in their goods or children; and this general interest ties them more
firmly together, than if all their rags were twisted into ropes, to bind
them indissolubly from a separation, which detestable union is farther
consolidated by the preceding oath.

They stroll up and down all summer-time in droves, and dexterously pick
pockets while they are telling fortunes; and the money, rings, silver
thimbles, &c. which they get, are instantly conveyed from one hand to
another, till the remotest person of the gang (who is not suspected,
because they come not near the person robbed) gets possession of it; so
that in the strictest search, it is impossible to recover it, while the
wretches, with imprecations, oaths, and protestations, disclaim the
thievery.

That by which they were said to get the most money, was, when young
gentlewomen of good families and reputation, have happened to be with
child before marriage, a round sum is often bestowed among Gipsies, for
some mort to take the child; and, as in these cases it was never heard
of more by the true mother and family, so the disgrace was kept
concealed from the world; and, in the event of the child surviving, its
parents are never known.

The following account of these wandering beings, is taken from Evelyn’s
Journal, which throws some light on their degeneracy from the primitive
tribes.

“In our statutes they are called Egyptians, which implies a counterfeit
kind of rogues, who ‘being English or Welsh people,’ disguise themselves
in uncouth habits, smearing their faces and bodies, and framing to
themselves an unknown, canting language, wander up and down; and under
pretence of telling fortunes, curing diseases, &c. abuse the common
people, trick them of their money, and steal all that is not too hot or
too heavy for them. See several statutes made against them, 28 Henry